Gathering Leaves

Introduction

Harvesting leaves is an important part of life on the farm, especially in the thick and rich autumns of New England. A mound of leaves might smother vital farmland and even become toxic if they are not cleared. The speaker could also be storing the leaves for the start of the next growing season because the mouldy much will protect and fertilise the soil.

However, Frost uses this mundane task to raise questions about our very purpose in life. Left with a shed full of decaying and weightless leaves, the speaker wonders if his efforts have any significance. What is the point of gathering leaves if it is not fulfilling or leads to any real conclusion?

Gathering Leaves

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use,
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?

The Title

The speaker describes his difficult struggle to shift the autumn leaves into bags so they can store them in their shed. At first glance, the title seems straightforward. The obvious interpretation, which assumes “gathering” is a verb, focuses on the laborious task of shovelling “leaves” into “bags”. Since it is in the present participle form, the word suggests the harvest has not ended and the speaker must continue his work.

However, “gathering” could also be an adjective modifying the noun. Leaves will clump together into piles when they are blown by the wind. It is natural and inevitable, but the speaker must act to clear the gathering leaves from the land. This could reveal the futility of the work because there will always be another heap to “spade” into the “shed”. Perhaps it is arrogant to believe we can control the natural world.

Interestingly, “gathering” might be a gerund – a verb which functions as a noun. The first part of the title could be referring to how people and things convene in life. By contrast, the second part then points to our death. In this way, the speaker is questioning the very purpose and meaning of existence if we merely gather and then leave.

Since the poem is a depiction of the speaker’s troubled mind, the preferred reading of the title is probably a combination of all three interpretations.

The Futility of Gathering Leaves

The opening stanza reveals the speaker’s exasperation towards the harvest he finds mentally and physically draining. The first line is an obvious and confident declaration: “spades take up leaves”. However, Frost continues the sentence into the next line with an absurd comparison between “spades” and “spoons”. Perhaps the speaker is so frustrated by their work he feels “spades” are totally inadequate and inefficient tools for the task so they might as well be using “spoons”. The bizarre comparison is emphasised by the sibilance connecting the two words and the use of enjambment separating the ideas.

The speaker then describes how the “bags full of leaves” weigh little more than “balloons”. The simile is also intentionally ridiculous to convey the speaker’s immense disappointment towards how little he has to show for all his heavy lifting.

The sense of futility is reinforced by the suggestion in the opening stanza that there will an abab rhyme scheme. The image of “leaves” is simply repeated because they don’t seem to go anywhere, and the rhyming of “spoons” and “balloons” is comical. Of course, the expectation of an alternative rhyme scheme is not fulfilled.

Frost returns to this feeling of hopelessness in the fourth stanza. The use repetition communicates the repetitive nature of the work to the audience, but the negative prefix in “unload” also suggests gathering leaves is unfulfilling and the tone of the line “again and again” is one of despair.

The poet forces us to consider the significance of gathering enough leaves to “fill the whole shed” by asking what he has actually achieved. The internal rhyming of “till” and “fill” gives the question a bitter tone. Of course, the repetition of the first-person pronoun draws attention to his role in the work which he feels is pointless.

The fifth quatrain reinforces his despondency with the repetition of “nothing” and the way the leaves inevitably grow “duller” and lose “color”. The speaker recognises that life inevitably fades, and he will have very little to show for all his hard work.

There is a sense of optimism introduced by the conjunction “but” and through the tautological “a crop is a crop”. The speaker seems resigned to using his spade to shift leaves into the shed. Perhaps the work is not futile because “who’s to say where / The harvest shall stop?” No one knows.

The Search for Meaning

In the third verse, the leaves “elude” the speaker’s “embrace”. Frost personifies the leaves here by suggesting they are clever and are consciously evading capture. The word “elude” can also mean to escape understanding – the speaker doesn’t understand the leaves.

There is more ambiguity in “embrace” because it can mean to physically hold the leaves in your arms or to accept the leaves willingly into your beliefs. Put simply, the speaker tries to accept his role gathering leaves, but they escape from his grasp. The alliteration draws the reader’s attention to this lack of love or connection between the speaker and the leaves.

The image “flowing” transforms the leaves into a liquid. The metaphor is appropriate because liquid is also incredibly difficult to hold and contain. Again, there is something quite comical about the leaves splashing onto his face.

Frost could be poking fun at our arrogant need to find meaning in the world. The leaves aren’t malevolent. They are just leaves he is struggling to shift into the shed.

The Existential Crisis

Gathering leaves is tough work and Frost seems to brag about his own efforts when he makes a “great noise / Of rustling all day”. The way he can raise “mountains” is almost god-like.

Published in 1923 in a collection called “New Hampshire”, Robert Frost is probably describing his struggle to maintain the 30 acres of pasture, fields and woods his grandfather bought him in Derry in 1900. He claimed he lacked the energy for farming and his neighbours viewed him as a failure.¹

The unlikely farmer made enough from selling eggs and apples to meet the needs of his family. He was also able to find the time and seclusion needed to write poetry. The misery he felt gathering leaves is clear in the poem, but his experiences on the farm helped Frost find his voice as a poet.

To a large extent the terrain of my poetry is the Derry landscape, the Derry farm. Poems growing out of this, though composite, were built on incidents and are therefore autobiographical.

Sadly, Frost’s first child contracted a severe case of typhoid fever and died in the summer of 1900. The poet blamed himself for the boy’s death and soon believed the universe was simply indifferent to human suffering. That rejection of a divine purpose and design can be seen in the comparison between his “great noise” and “rabbit and deer / Running away”. The simile suggests his greatness is no more significant than a wild animal. We are all just “Gathering Leaves”.

Final Thoughts

You should read Robert Frost’s Mowing because it also explores the poet’s attitudes to working on the farm. Depicting a quiet moment when the speaker is cutting the hay, the poem raises profound questions about our role in life. After Apple-Picking is another poem which focuses on the effects and purpose of hard work.

The poet was clearly frustrated by his obligations on the farm, so it is no surprise he sold the place and moved to England. His anxious desire for change is expressed very succinctly in his poem Into My Own.

Comprehension Questions

1. Explore each connotation of the word “gathering”. Is it the continuous form of the verb? Is it an adjective? A gerund?
2. Explain the pun in the title.
3. Why are spades useful?
4. What does the comical comparison to “spoons” suggest about the tools we use in life?
5. Is the simile comparing the weight of the “bags full of leaves” to “balloons” effective?
6. What does the second quatrain suggest about the speaker? Is his noise “great” or is he insignificant?
7. Explain why the hyperbole of “mountains” of leaves suggests the huge effort needed to gather the “crop”.
8. Explain the antithesis between “light as balloons” and “mountains”.
9. How does the metaphor of leaves “flowing” convey effectively the speaker’s futile attempts to collect leaves? Do you find this image comical?
10. Explain the repetition in the fourth stanza and what it suggests about the speaker’s attitude towards their work.
11. What might the “shed” symbolise?
12. How does the speaker feel towards gathering leaves in the fifth stanza? Focus on the tone of the lines and how the leaves change.
13. Is the work of gathering leaves a metaphor for life?
14. What could the leaves signify in Frost’s life and our own?
15. The poem contains two open-ended questions. Why?
16. How does the structure of the poem reinforce its themes?
17. What is the point?